The Unicorn Preservation Society (UPS) has been awarded £470,000 from two major funds in Unicorn's 200th anniversary year.
The Unicorn Preservation Society has received two grants, totalling £471,860, to fund activity celebrating HMS Unicorn’s 200th Anniversary, improving awareness of the ship and its significance, and to progress the Society’s plans to move HMS Unicorn into the nearby East Graving Dock as part of Project Safe Haven, the charity’s vision for HMS Unicorn as a central exhibit of a new maritime heritage attraction in Dundee city centre.
The Northwood Charitable Trust awarded the Unicorn Preservation Society £250,000 for core support at this extraordinary time for Unicorn, offering vital security for the continued development of ongoing museum activities and established volunteer, community engagement and learning work. The support ensures Unicorn’s core work as a visitor attraction, community hub and centre for outreach and volunteering is maintained alongside intensifying preparations for Project Safe Haven.
The National Lottery Heritage Fund awarded the Society £221,860.00 toward celebrating and raising awareness of Unicorn through its bicentenary period (2024-2026). The funding will enable the Society to broaden awareness of Unicorn’s extraordinary heritage and to launch of a public campaign to secure the support needed to preserve her for the next 200 years. The Unicorn Society will, through activities and events, improved online presence, ticketing, fundraising, and community engagement ensure, the value of Unicorn’s heritage is recognised and valued.
Combined, the funding will also allow the Unicorn Preservation Society, which operates with a very small staff, to increase capacity to prepare for the complex engineering challenge of relocating the fragile ship to the East Graving Dock.
Matthew Bellhouse Moran, Museum Director on behalf of the Unicorn Preservation Society:
“We are ecstatic to have received this support which will allow the Unicorn Preservation Society to progress our plans into March 2025. As an independent charity without regular core funding, we are dependent on funding such as this to achieve our aim of saving HMS Unicorn for future generations.”
Source: HMS Unicorn website
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